Attraction World is once again honoured to be involved in the Travel Bulletin Star Awards as sponsors of both the Star Worldwide and Star European Theme Park/Attraction Awards.

As a B2B business we are always keen to be involved in key industry events such as the Star Awards as it recognises our key partners in the USA and Europe. Our main aim as a business is to help agents sell these attractions and recognise the benefits to their customers by offering tickets and experiences pre-departure. Sponsoring these awards is our way of saying thank you to our partners for their continued commitment to Attraction World and indeed to the UK travel trade for selling them.

Attraction World is 100% committed to the UK travel trade and in helping agents make the most of the sales opportunities afforded by offering tickets and attractions pre-departure.

We are very proud of our sales tools currently available including a new online training programme and our destination training guides which have proved very popular with our agents. These simple guides explain in a few pages the key resorts, distances, main attractions, everything an agent would need to know in order to sell the key attractions.

Jetset is delighted to be acting as a sponsor of the Travel Bulletin Star Awards 2017 as these awards give agents an opportunity to provide positive feedback with their vote and hopefully thank the efforts of their favourite suppliers and principles. It’s also a wonderful occasion, a super night out for staff and a delightful opportunity to catch up with and entertain some of our agents.

Jetset has been busy this year....at the start of the year, internally we devised ‘Project Long’ which was aimed at breaking the perception that Package Pal is just the pre-eminent agent booking tool for short breaks. Since January we have been showcasing our fantastic range and pricing on Long Haul destinations and Long Durations. I’m happy to report that by highlighting our strength in this area we have seen a fairly dramatic switch in our booking make-up! Yes, Europe remains the #1 market for Package Pal but Caribbean, North America, and U.A.E have performed really well for us.

Additionally we are focused on incentives for agents and client value. A few months back saw the famous Jetset Lotto go to two weekly jackpots which agents loved...and in a few months it will be back! On the Value Added side of things, we have run Lounge Pass promotions in March and April where an agent can provide their clients with a fabulous start to their travel plans with a complimentary lounge pass at a UK airport, just by booking certain airlines and certain criteria.As the saying goes 'Every Little Helps!'

Just as Travel Bulletin are right to be excited and proud as they celebrate 21 years of Star Awards, Jetset are also getting excited as next year we will be 50 years young! Back in 1968 we were pioneers of certain concepts and to this day, the energy and verve for innovation is still at the heart of everything we do….

Birmingham Airport is pleased to be sponsoring the Travel Bulletin Star Awards as we feel it is important to recognise the fantastic work that travel agents and our travel trade team do to make the routes we secure a success. The evening also give us an opportunity to further increase awareness and recognition of the Birmingham Airport brand and routes available from the Midlands gateway.

This is our fourth year of sponsoring these awards and we’ve developed a great relationship with the event organisers too and so we hope to continue being a key sponsor for the foreseeable future.

In the last 12 months the airport has seen many developments including a significant increase in the number of airlines and routes operating to and from Birmingham.

Jet2 started operating last month with 23 destinations from Birmingham Airport with flights operating on four brand new Boeing 737-800 next generation aircraft. More than 200 jobs have been created as a result of the operation, which will see 57 weekly flights at peak times. The arrival of this airline was very much led by demand from agents and regional travel trade representatives who reported that customers wanted the Jet2.com and Jet2holidays’ service at Birmingham particularly because of their family friendly ethos and great value package holidays.

Other developments have included the return of bmi regional with flights to Austria’s second city, Graz. Next month the airline will be launching flights to Gothenburg and Nuremburg too. These routes were largely introduced as a result of demand from local business.

Other route launches, all of which have been introduced as a result of regional demand include:

Czech Airlines flying five times a week to Prague

Vueling adding Malaga and Paris-Orly to their list of destinations

Wizz Air increasing their Central and Eastern European offerings adding routes to Sofia, Bucharest and Wroclaw

Flybe starting flights to Toulouse

Monarch adding Lisbon and Madrid to their destination options

Blue Air launching Cluj and Larnaca

Eurowings introducing a new route to Vienna

Albastar starting flights to Palma de Mallorca.

In addition, Qatar Airways celebrated their first anniversary recently at Birmingham Airport with strong demand remaining from business, leisure and cargo shippers between the Midlands and Doha.

The airport will soon see the return of icon brand, British Airways and will shortly be introducing FlyOne flights to Moldova and Cobalt Air flights to Larnaca.

New developments are very visible in the terminal too with £300 million being invested over the last ten years on improvements to facilities and infrastructure. Recently an additional £100 million has been invested to improve the hold-baggage screening system and double the number of self-service check-in bag drop kiosks. Other major improvements include developing a new Drop Off car park which will be free for 30 minutes whilst upgrading existing car parks and upgrading the ATC Surface Movement Radar.

We’re making these investments to enhance operational efficiency and improve the passenger journey going forward.

We look forward to meeting with the travel agents and suppliers that we work so closely with to celebrate industry success at the Star Awards in September. We also always look forward to seeing our branding there and this year we can’t wait to see the guests taking part in our 'selfie mirror' activity!

It's important for us to support the Travel Bulletin Star Awards as it’s a great occasion to network with agents, competitors and other suppliers to see their viewpoint on the market and emerging trends.

Agents are the first stop between hotels and the end client and we need to prove how good our product is to agents and persuade them to buy into our product so that they can sell it to the end customer. Our objective is to engage with the travel trade as much and as often as possible in order to have our brands and properties at the forefront of their mind. Our objective is to provide them with the most efficient and complete support system to help build their trust of the system and ultimately the company.

In terms of our own developments, this year we opened Gran Melia Nacional Rio in Brazil and we have many new exciting openings for the rest of the year and into 2018 including Gran Melia Huravee in the Maldives, Melia Serengeti Lodge in Tanzania, Gran Melia Ghoo in Iran, ME Sitges in Barcelona, Melia Saidia Beach in Morocco, ME Dubai and eight new hotels in Cuba just to name a few.